The FINEPRINT project made significant progress beyond the state of the art in several thematic areas. Results delivered include new methodologies, new global datasets and models, a wide range of empirical assessments as well as innovative online tools to communicate results. Following the principle of open science, we made available all codes underlying our research in a GitHub repository (
https://github.com/fineprint-global(si apre in una nuova finestra)). Further, all data sets were published openly in repositories such as Zenodo or PANGAEA.
Global resource extraction and related environmental impacts
• Our work on assessing the land area occupied by mining activities on the global level through investigating satellite images was groundbreaking. Earlier studies had focused on a small number of global mining sites or on a selected mining region only and data for assessments on the global level was generally missing.
• We compiled and presented the most comprehensive open database on mine-specific production (www.fineprint.global/mining-database). This allows overcoming restrictions imposed by other commercial data products.
• We developed an interactive global map (www.fineprint.global/viewer) where users can analyse the mining land use data as well as the locations of the mine-specific production data. Further, the production levels and commodity composition of each mine is presented in a separate visualisation section (www.fineprint.global/global-coal-and-metal-mining-viewer).
Global supply chain models and footprint assessments
• In the area of food and agricultural products, the global model of biomass flows (FABIO) is the most comprehensive physical MRIO model openly available to the research community. Its very high product and country detail opened up new dimensions for assessing the often distant environmental impacts related to the consumption of agricultural and food products. FINEPRINT also further developed the FABIO viewer, where user can investigate global supply chains of agricultural and food products (www.fineprint.global/fabio-viewer).
• We developed an approach for performing spatially explicit supply chain assessments for agricultural products based solely on publicly accessible data and tested the approach for the case study on soya from Brazil.
• FINEPRINT also presented the first global physical MRIO model for metal ores using iron and steel products as a case study. Spatially explicit accounts of mining were integrated into global MRIO models to trace related environmental impacts from producer to consumer countries.